Courts of Law Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Hague

The seat of the court is at The Hague, Netherlands, but it may hold sessions elsewhere whenever it considers it desirable. Its first session was held at The Hague in April and May 1946. All members of the United Nations are ipso facto parties to the statute of the International Court of Justice, and non-members may also become parties to the statute on conditions to be determined in each case by the UN General Assembly upon recommendation of the Security Council.

Answer: True

The International Court of Justice, popularly known as the World Court, is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations. The court's origins precede the League of Nations. The idea for the first international court arose at The Hague in 1899 to regulate principles for arbitration of international disputes.

This institution was subsumed under the League of Nations in 1919 as the Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ) and adopted its present name with the foundation of the United Nations in 1945.

Answer: Strasbourg

It's in France. On November 4, 1950, the Council of Europe agreed to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the substantive provisions of which are based on a draft of what is now the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Together with its five additional protocols, this convention, which entered into force on September 3, 1953, represents the most advanced and successful international experiment in the field.

The instrumentalities created under the European convention are the European Commission of Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights.

The convention also makes use of the governmental organ of the Council of Europe, the Committee of Ministers.

Answer: Luxembourg

In Luxembuurg. The EEC (the forerunner of the European Union) was established in the wake of World War II to develop the economies of the member states into one large common market, and to try to develop a political union of the states of western Europe capable of alleviating their fears of war with each other. Plans for a common market in western Europe had been discussed in 1955 at a meeting in Messina, Sicily; the treaty was finally signed in March 1957, and the EEC came into operation on Jan. 1, 1958.

The four primary structural organs of the EEC were the Commission, the Council of Ministers, the European Court of Justice (NOT to be confused with the European Court of Human Rights) and the European Parliament.

Answer: San Jose, Costa Rica

In 1948, concurrent with its establishment of the Organization of American States (OAS), the Ninth Pan-American Conference adopted the American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man, an instrument similar to, but coming a full seven months before, the Universal Declaration of the United Nations and setting out the duties as well as the rights of the individual citizen (a throwback, perhaps, to Greco-Roman and medieval natural law theories). Subsequently, in 1959, a meeting of consultation of the American Ministers for Foreign Affairs created, within the framework of the OAS, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which has since undertaken important investigative activities concerning human rights in the Americas. Finally, in 1969, the Inter-American Specialized Conference on Human Rights, meeting in San Jose, Costa Rica, adopted the American Convention on Human Rights, which made the existing Inter-American Commission on Human Rights an organ for the convention's implementation and established the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which sits in San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica.

Answer: Arusha

The tribunal, also known as the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, is in Tanzania. Kigali is the capital of Rwanda, Bujumbura is the capital of Burundi and Dodoma is the designated capital of Tanzania. The appeal of former prime minister Jean Kambanda's 1998 sentence to life in prison was dismissed in October. Georges Ruggiu, a former journalist, pleaded guilty to having incited genocide and received a 12-year sentence.

Answer: The Hague

The tribunal, also known as the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, is in The Netherlands. Belgrade is the capital of Yugoslavia and Sarajevo the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Yugoslavia Tribunal produced its assessment of the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.

It determined that NATO did not cause 'excessive' environmental damage and had selected noncivilian targets as much as 'reasonably possible.' The tribunal continues to await the arrest of indicted war criminals Radovan Karadzic and Slobodan Milosevic, former leaders of Bosnia and Herzegovina and of Yugoslavia, respectively.

Answer: The Netherlands

Just after 7 p.m. on December 21, 1988, Pan American flight 103 blew apart in mid air and rained fire, debris and bodies onto the town of Lockerbie, Scotland.

Answer: Bloemfontein

Pretoria is the administrative capital and Cape Town the legislative capital of South Africa.

Answer: False

It's in The Hague, seat of the Dutch government.